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Digging Up the History of Delve
We must dig deep into the English language’s past to find the origins of delve. The verb traces to the early Old English word delfan meaning “to dig.” For centuries, there was only delving—no digging—because dig didn’t exist until much later; it appears in early Middle English. Given dig and delve’s overlapping meanings today, is the phrase “dig and delve” (as in the line “eleven, twelve, dig and delve,” from the nursery rhyme that begins “one, two, buckle my shoe”) redundant? Not necessarily. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in some local uses, dig was the term for working with a mattock (a tool similar to an adze or a pick), while delve was reserved for work done using a spade. Although delve has a history of use for literal digging, nowadays the term is often applied to carefully researching or examining something, as in “delving into the past.”
Examples of delve in a Sentence
Thomas G. Moukawsher, MSNBC Newsweek, 14 Apr. 2025
And while United were aided by the fact City could only name a bench of six and were forced to delve into those threadbare reserves just 20 minutes into the match, a third successive trip to Wembley is an undeniable success regardless of the Skinner divide one sits.
—Megan Feringa, New York Times, 13 Apr. 2025
Hosted on Apple and Spotify, the podcast delves into our city’s history from multiple angles: Saratoga’s founding, notable landmarks and the personal accounts of everyday residents who have quietly shaped our community.
—Belal Aftab, Mercury News, 13 Apr. 2025
Hot on the heels of news of its 4K Blu-ray release of Tombstone, Disney is delving into its vast movie archive again to give another classic the 4K disc treatment.
—John Archer, Forbes.com, 11 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for delve
Cite this Entry
“Delve.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/delve. Accessed 18 Apr. 2025.
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